African American Wedding Help

[sarjha photography]

I usually can suggest to people the types of clothes that will flatter ones skin

tones, but I was assisting for this family's portraits, and didn't meet them or

talk with them until the day of the shoot (other photographer had done so). Most

of the family were very dark complexion, and everyone wore white linen. I had a

terrible time metering. At first I just let my good old in camera meter and

flash do the job. HA. I immediately switched to manual after I saw the results.

 

I lost detail in their white clothes, so I could get detail in their faces. Now

some of the family members were lighter in complexion then others, so I needed

to dodge a few faces in PS, but when I did that I got terribly flat grainy mixed

colored pixel faces. yuck. I am shooting an African American wedding this

october, so I want to be prepared for this situation.

 

Two Questions: 1. What should I meter (at the wedding), so I can retain detail

in the dress, yet still capture the brides glowing face? Any other suggestions

about shooting a variety of skin tones would be helpful.

2. What techniques would anyone suggest in photoshop to dodge dark faces?

[Matt Laur]

In the sample you've provided, it seems to me that while you are indeed wrestling with dynamic range issues as part of the problem, you're also dealing with lighting and compositional issues. Notice that brightly sun-lit white fountain that's right between their heads in the auto-metered shot? Aside from the visual distraction it introduces, it's a very bright highlight that the camera's trying to take into account, and probably contributes to the underexposure.

 

You might really benefit, in the scenario you're showing, to get some light off of the camerar axis. While you might then blow out some areas of the white clothing, other detail could be retained while still getting some nice sculptural light on the faces. Dead-on, flat, even light across your subjects is just asking for trouble in this situation.

 

Lastly: are you shooting straight to JPGs? Working directly on RAW files or TIFs derived from them, with the extra latitude that you'd then have might make a difference. What camera body are you using?

 

Tricky situation, to be sure. Right up there with extremenly pasty-skinned celts wearing black tuxedos! And, as you've probably seen elsewhere, do watch out for ambient light coming in through overhead tree foliage, or reflecting strongly off of green grass or other surfaces ... that's big trouble in general, but a disaster with darker skin.

[conraderb]

sarah - a few things.

 

soft, off camera lighting will really help here. strobes on umbrellas are useful. avoid direct flash whenever possible.

 

second, have a few napkins ready. everyone in the world has oil on their face, but it just happens that people with darker skin, the lighter oil contrasts more with their face. napkins help control oil, especially when people might get a bit sweaty in their wedding clothes!

 

shoot raw, of course, and combine exposures if you don't get it right in camera.

 

turn on highlight priority in your camera if you have it.

[sarjha photography]

The location only enhanced my problems. The family wanted all their pictures to be in front of that white fountain. So trying to find a location that would have the least amount of light coming through the trees, and the least amount of foot traffic was a bit difficult. I was shooting with a Nikon D100 with an SB 800. Next time for sure, I will be hand holding my flash to the side to get some kind of dimension. I have been shooting in jpeg, but with this wedding I may have to shoot in raw, which terrifies me, since with my old camera it takes forever for it to process the files. Overall, I had some problems to overcome, but the family loved all the pictures, which surprised me, because I would have been unhappy if my face showed up that dark. Which led me to question if darker skinned individuals have become accustomed to having such poor exposure on their faces that they find it acceptable?

[rvalois]

Hi Sarah ...

 

ALL in-camera meters - no matter how expensive or how "smart" the manufacturers tell you their cameras are - measure light REFLECTED from your subject and are affected by clothing and skin color.

 

I use a handheld ambient light meter for many situations but especially those special situations where the in-camera meter gets completely fooled by clothing and skin color. An ambient light meter will measure the light FALLING on your subject. You then set your camera manually as measured by the meter.

 

I would not shoot ANY wedding without one.

 

Ray

[edward_brewington]

Hi Sarah. Dark skin people do like well shot photo's. Use a incidence meter to get your exposure. You have just discovered the limitations of an in camera meter.

[Matt Laur]

When you shoot your upcoming wedding this fall... is there ANY chance that you might have access to a more up to date camera body? I hate to say it, but even a D40 would probably provide you better results - at least in terms of exposure latitude and speed in writing RAW files as you're working. A used D200 (which will be all the more available, and that much less expensive as the summer wears on), with that D100 as your backup body, would completely change your thinking about how to shoot such situations.

[jp_and_ap_the_glass_eye]

Hello

 

From your post is seems you have your priorities right. Number One: the faces of the bride and groom and the family members. Number Two: anyone and anything else.

 

So that mean you will probably crank in some fair amount of exposure compensation (2/3 stop generally works for me. One stop? More?) and lose definition in the dress. If there are great fields of white the meter may be even further off. Burning may be enough for the whiter faces, but probably will not be perfect for the dress.

[garrison_k.]

"Use a incidence meter to get your exposure. You have just discovered the limitations of an in camera meter."

 

Certainly there are difficulties with the in-camera meter, but there aren't limitations of any sort. One simply must know how it works, why it reads tones the way it does, and hence how to adjust for its reading. Once learned, it wont take long before this becomes instinct and instant adjustments are done. What if the sun breaks out of the clouds just as "and you may kiss the bride" and what is one to do? Yell "Stop." and run in with your hand-held meter, lol, I can see it now.

 

The only reason, with a digtal slr, to use a hand held meter that I could see, would be as an aid to speed up post production and have consistent exposures. But you shouldn't be relying on it in practice for basic fundamental exposure needs. That's something a photographer knows how to do. And the emters are so good in todays cameras. I was just reading about the D300 and what Nikon has done with their algorithms. The camera actually knows skin tones from the data and knows where it is desired to be in the exposure.

 

"1. What should I meter (at the wedding), so I can retain detail in the dress, yet still capture the brides glowing face? Any other suggestions about shooting a variety of skin tones would be helpful."

 

What sort of lighting, direct open sky at mid day? Or a nice soft cloudy day? In contrasty-open-sky-direct light, the white dress may contain three stops of tonal range alone. So I don't mind seeing "blown highlights" sneaking in at the upper end of the exposure as a sacrifice in order to bring detail out in the darker end of the range.

 

I once read here on PN about using t-shirts on chairs for testing and it's such an easy and great way of finding out how to adjust the camera for your meter. Drape a black t-shirt over the back of a chair, and a white one on a chair next to it. Put your camera on spot meter, and on manual metering, put the spot on the black shirt, adjust the camera to what the meter says to do and take a picture. Move over to the white t-shirt and do the same, adjust for what it tells you is a correct exposure and snap. Open them up in the computer, what do you see? Grey t-shirts? Why?

 

"2. What techniques would anyone suggest in photoshop to dodge dark faces?"

 

Masking layers. Open a raw file that is slightly over exposed for the face you want. Go back and re-open the same raw file that is pleasing all around exposure and put it on the top layer of the first lighter one. Click the masking layer icon, selct b for brush, and bring in the lighter exposed face from the back ground. There's a few tools to adjust when you do this, opacity and brush thickness. This is the most powerful tool in photoshop and is the number one direct link to the days of traditional wet printing when multi-contrast and dodging and burning was the norm. It is very easy to bring three or four different raw file adjustments into a layered .psd and quickly make a stunning image that retains detail straight across the spectrum from clouds to shaded foliage.

 

Many have trouble with white balance too.

 

You don't have a very high dynamic range (D100= 5 stops?) in this camera to begin with and you're doing yourself no favors shooting jpg combined with not knowing how a camera's meter behaves. Risky business. You'd do your self a huge advantage for years to come by buying a cheap film camera (F100?) and learning how to shoot E6 without a hand-held meter. Provia is great for people.

[picturesque]

Do searches on this forum. This has been asked a lot.

 

In a portrait session, you have more control and time to tip things your way re exposure, subject positioning, etc. At a wedding, you won't have much control.

 

Generally, shoot RAW so you have the most room in post processing re highlight recovery and lifting exposure. Avoid any brighter lighting on clothes than on faces, such as dappled sun. Avoid putting the subect in bright sun. The softer and less contrasty light the better, although skillful balancing of light, even direct flash, is more important. Look for natural separation from the background--so middle to lighter value backgrounds are better. Good suggestion above re oil on skin. Darker skin tends to have specular highlights that are more prominent. You might even bring along blotting tissue (check cosmetics stores). If possible, put more light on the darker skinned person than on the lighter skinned one, more workable with off camera lighting, obviously, but can also work with lucky lighting, such as directional, reflected sunlight. Decide, as a working method, whether you want to keep all white/highlights under control and lift the darker values, or let some small highlights blow and recover in post. Remember, in the end, the faces are important. Some small blown whites in clothes are not important.

 

Re your portrait session. The background is also blowing out, so in this situation, I would have exposed for the background (bright sun or close to), and put the subjects in the shade, as you did, but used an off camera flash (or even on-camera) to lift the exposure past the ambient level. In your example, the problem is basically overall underexposure. When you brought the exposure up in PS, you lost the highlights, which is easy to do with a jpeg. Garrison suggested layers, which is good. I also sometimes use the Highlight/shadow tool after I've used Curves to bring up the overall shot while controlling the highlights. This also lets you control contrast too.

 

I agree with Garrison about thinking before grabbing an incident meter. I use an incident meter all the time, but a great part of that is because I'm used to it. In the above case, an incident reading of the shade would have given you the shade EV, but unless you also take into account the background EV, this doesn't help you much. The subjects still needed flash to bring up the subject exposure, which isn't being metered with an ambient reading. It is the intelligent use of a meter, either incident or in-camera/reflected that is important. Flash comp, as Garrison says, on your example would have at least given you NOT-underexposed subjects, even though the background is still overexposed.

 

Lastly, when photographing people in front of fountains, I always put the people to one side of the vertical standard of the fountain, to avoid the tip of the fountain protruding at odd places behind heads.

[rvalois]

Hi Garrison K.,

 

You make some excellent and well articulated points in your post. This leads me to wonder why you would make this non-sensical statement: "... What if the sun breaks out of the clouds just as "and you may kiss the bride" and what is one to do? Yell "Stop." and run in with your hand-held meter, lol, I can see it now. ..."

 

As you well know, this is clearly NOT what you suggest might happen.

 

Ray

http://raymondvaloisphotograph.com/

[Matt Laur]

Raymond: I do believe he's being a bit sarcastic. His point is that no matter how perfect a tool a handheld incident meter is, it is NOT the perfect tool in a possibly dynamic situation where you cannot run back in with the meter... and thus you either need a very experienced eye (to know how to make a manual change when you see the light change), or... you need ot know how to use your camera's reflective meter, and know what its strengths and weaknesses are.

[markonestudios]

Hi Sarah,

<p>As a Kenya-based photographer, 95% of my wedding shoots involve the very challenges you mention here as a matter of routine. Add to that all-year-round sunshine, most weddings being in the early afternoon with the sun almost directly overhead because of being at the Equator. Some of the weddings involve a Caucasian groom and an African bride. Yup, I face quite a cocktail of challenges ;) A lot of the advice given so far is right on the money. When shooting film, I use my handheld (incident) meter and make minor adjustments based on experience. Black people like their photos just as well done as lighter-skinned people, so don't assume that you can drop your standards for African-American weddings. I'm sure you weren't planning to, but a statement in your post alluded to that ("Which led me to question if darker skinned individuals have become accustomed to having such poor exposure on their faces that they find it acceptable?")

<p>I would add that for my outdoors shoots, if I can't find open shade, I bring out my reflector to provide fill light for the faces. I generally would tend to try and preserve the highlights by underexposing somewhat, but remember that trying to pull up skin tones in post-processing (particularly for dark-skinned people) introduces noise issues. So more often than not, I would rather allow some highlights to blow out in the dress than have extreme underexposure.

<p>Feel free to email me for more tips...

[sarjha photography]

Thank you for everyones advise. I am planning to upgrade to a D2X this summer, which will help out a lot. The main reason I was asking this question was because I didn't find the pictures to be acceptable, and wanted to learn possible alternatives. I do NOT want to show a bride and groom pics that do not reflect how they looked and felt on their day.

So thanks again for everyone's helpful hints, I will be doing more research on the matter so I am well prepared before that wedding.

[garrison_k.]

"I am planning to upgrade to a D2X this summer"

 

I'd research that as well. The D200 has nicer files, imo. An extra stop of dynamic range over the D2x and it performs better at higher iso's. The pop-up flash is great in a pinch but more importantly, works as a master flash if you wish to quickly go off-camera and wireless ttl with a SB-800. Many bought the D200 as a back-up to the D2x and ended up using the D200 full time instead. D200's are an incredible value for the money right now on the used market.

[think27]

Sarah - Next time you create a thread - take a look at the instructions as you proceed to uploading an image.

 

Images need to be 511 pixels in width or less

 

Caption must be typed in

 

We don't want links posted in the forums please.

 

FYI Same goes for when you attach an image when making a comment in a thread...

 

Thanks - Moderator

[caitlin_greer]

Garrison (or anyone else) can you recommend a good online tutorial for use of masking layers in adjusting exposure like you mentioned in your response to Sarah?

Thanks,

Caitlin